NEW WSJ/NBC poll finds enthusiasm is up among core Democrats.Share of voters showing a high level of interest in the election:Blacks 68%, up from 57% in Jan-Sept.Latinos: 71%, up from 47%Young people: 51%, up from 35%https://t.co/gjCw8wLLY5 via @WSJ

This is your periodic reminder. There will be discouraging news, infighting, candidate gaffes, and, from Trump and the GOP, lies and scare tactics galore. Remember to keep your eyes on the prize. Vote and do whatever you can to help others do so as well. https://t.co/DkappJrpkr

To the apolitical people who voted for Trump just out of morbid curiosity to see what would happen: Now you know. Wouldn't it be fun to switch it up and see what would happen if Democrats had subpoena power over him?

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Anne Lauriehttps://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgAnne Laurie2018-10-22 04:55:562018-10-22 05:19:23Monday Morning Open Thread: All GOTV, All the Time

1) Wherein we learn that abysmal stupidity is apparently a prerequisite for godhood.

In yet another bizarre incident which reveals how deeply superstitions are part of the society, tantrik Deeraj Kharol from Bhilwara was rescued by the police after he buried himself alive to attain ‘samadhi’ (salvation) and become God.
[snip]
…His plan was to get buried on the first day of Navratra and attain ‘samadhi’ near the temple and get ‘resurrected’ as God three days later.… Source

Alain, if you’re testing the navigation thingies which have now appeared at the bottom of a front page post when viewed on a comment thread, they’re in reversed position. That is, the next thread up has arrows pointing back and the previous thread down has arrows pointing forward.

Congolese rebels killed 15 civilians and abducted a dozen children in an attack at the center of the latest deadly Ebola outbreak, Congo’s military said Sunday, as the violence threatened to again force the suspension of crucial virus containment efforts.
[snip]
Late last month, Ebola outbreak containment efforts were suspended for days in Beni after a deadly attack, complicating work to find and track suspected contacts of infected people. Since then, many of the new confirmed Ebola cases have been reported in Beni as the rate of new cases overall has more than doubled, alarming aid groups.

The latest attack comes after two medical agents with the Congolese army were shot dead — the first time health workers have been killed by rebels in this Ebola outbreak.
[snip]
Confirmed Ebola cases have now reached 200, including 117 deaths.
[snip]
In the latest sign of the rumors that pose another serious challenge to containing the deadly virus, the health ministry said 22 youth in Butembo dug up the body of an Ebola victim and opened the body bag, “wanting to verify that no organs had been taken from the body by health workers.”

They ended up touching the highly infectious bodily fluids, the ministry said. “The next day, they agreed to be vaccinated,” joining the more than 20,000 people who have received vaccinations so far. Source

“We’ve seen anti-Muslim candidates running in every region,” said Scott Simpson, public advocacy director of Muslim Advocates, which commissioned the report. “We’ve seen them running at every level of office, from the school and planning boards all the way to governor and Congress. We’ve seen it in liberal places and conservative places. It has really taken root and become very widespread.”

The report examined more than 80 campaigns across the US run by candidates who have engaged in anti-Muslim campaign attacks over the last two years. Almost all of the candidates are Republican. Conspiracy theories targeting Muslims have increasingly entered the political mainstream. The majority of the candidates openly targeting Muslims – 64% – are either elected or appointed officials or boast of a presidential endorsement.
……………………..
There is some evidence that such attacks do not work. Of the 80 anti-Muslim candidates identified in the research, only 11–14% – were elected or are safely projected to win in November.

“The rhetoric is not popular with American voters,” said Simpson. “It is popular with a really isolated and very extreme part of the electorate that is very hostile to Muslims, that will parrot back the most out-of-touch conspiracy theories about American Muslims without even thinking twice.”

The sharp rise in Islamophobic campaigns comes as a record number of Muslim Americans seek elected office. Gula said groups like Emgage believe the best way to counter anti-Muslim sentiment is to build a formidable presence in public office and as an electorate.

“Being able to rewrite and redefine what it means to be socially responsible and civically engaged within our communities is of huge importance,” he said. “We’ve seen a little over [100] Muslims run for office … That was once unheard of.”

I am sick to death of poll stories, they’re part of the horse race model of reporting and for us average voters useless. Really less than useless they can be damaging through despair or overconfidence. I wish we would stop talking about them.

Assume every race is a toss up and work your ass off to win, get out the vote & get out and vote.

@Immanentize:
They say 65 percent of all statistics
Are made up right there on the spot
82.4 percent of people believe ’em
Whether they’re accurate statistics or not
I don’t know what you believe
But I do know there’s no doubt
I need another double-shot of something 90 proof
I got too much to think about

@debbie: going to be 55° here, but we’ve had a few hard frosts, so hoping to get a lot cleaned up today in the raised flower bed too. Plus finish planting bulbs I ordered. Plus take the car in for service in an hour.
I want to go back to bed…

I read that article in the Guardian this morning and I would be very interested to hear who these mythical non-Republicans are using anti-muslim bigotry in their campaigns. They must exist, right? If even Britain’s painfully-moderate paper of record has to make a point of noting that not all of the examples over the last two years come from the GOP side of the aisle.

Chances are either –

1) They don’t exist, but noting that would be ‘partisan’, and the article wouldn’t get picked up by US outlets.
2) They’re ‘Independents’ (i.e. Republicans who couldn’t win the Primary and are determined not to be “out-Muslimed” in the General.
3) They’re Democrats who touted their military service and Republican ratfuckers turned that into anti-Muslim bias.

@rikyrah: yeah, and most of the replies to that are all about what limits women should put on their lives to avoid assault instead of setting an expectation that men be held to a baseline of “don’t assault people”.

@satby: We had our first <30 degree time period here in far NE Illinois early Saturday morning. The dragon's wing begonias, which had held their own against so many 32+ degree nights, finally succumbed. I will miss them–they were gorgeous.

Kansas voters remain sharply divided over who should be their next governor, with polls showing Republican Kris Kobach and Democrat Laura Kelly locked in a close race over the past several weeks.

This would be great to win. Kobach is the lead on voter suppression in the GOP. They like to pretend it’s Trump but Kobach has been advising national leaders in the GOP for years- he was Mitt Romney’s adviser. The thing about it is, he’s not just spreading conspiracy theories about voting, he’s a moron. He made an absolute fool of himself on Trump’s dumb voting commission. Their national expert on voting is dumb as a rock.

It’s the low quality problem again- they hire and promote bad people, people who should never have gotten as far as they did.

Here in north Florida, it’s getting colder, ominously early. Yesterday morning it was below 55. Last night my sister and I discussed how early it seemed, and compared to Halloween’s of our childhood. I only remember 1 halloween where it was cold. This morning a coworker dropped by to complain about how cold it was. I feel the signs are we will have a cold winter (for us). At least the oranges are almost ripe. I had to wear a sweater to work already. Usually it stays warm at least till thanksgiving, though by Christmas we need coats.

With one notable exception (the Washington Post) the coverage is just bad. How did they miss health care, which is the most important issue in the country to voters? They discover 2 weeks out that people are talking about health care? Why do we have this billion dollar campaign coverage industry at all?

It’s SO GOP-driven. They didn’t cover health care because it’s a bad issue for Republicans and Republicans jiggled the keys and sent them running after what Trump wants to talk about. We’re having a health care debate despite them.

“It is not clear to the Court whether Defendant repeatedly failed to meet his disclosure obligations intentionally or due to his unfamiliarity with the federal rules,” the judge added. “Therefore, the Court finds that an additional sanction is appropriate in the form of Continuing Legal Education. Defendant chose to represent his own office in this matter, and as such, had a duty to familiarize himself with the governing rules of procedure, and to ensure as the lead attorney on this case that his discovery obligations were satisfied despite his many duties as a busy public servant.”
Robinson, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ordered Kobach to do an additional six hours of continuing legal education in the 2018-19 year, above and beyond the ordinary state requirements.

Kobach found himself in hot water on several prior occasions during the proof-of-citizenship case. Last June, a federal magistrate fined Kobach $1,000 for presenting misleading arguments in the suit. And in April, Robinson held him in contempt for failing to send standard registration postcards to voters covered by a court order she issued.

It was a rout. He didn’t prepare at all. Dumb AND lazy. It’s 3rd rate work. Low quality. It doesn’t matter. He’ll continue to be on panels and advising presidents and national leaders. Mitt Romney was supposed to be this great executive. He hired Kobach. Trump continued to give him political patronage work, but Romney mainstreamed him.

@Kristine: I normally have lousy luck with begonias, but Quinerly overwrites hers, so she inspired me to give it a try. I put mine in the basement with a grow light and just in case I also snipped a couple of sprigs to try to root in my plant cloner. It’s been a week, so far everything is alive at least.

@David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch: Well, you don’t have to reach far back to 2017 when the chattering classes (including WaPo) reported that Ed Gillespie had the momentum and was closing the distance in the Virginia governor’s race. I was so spooked I left work early on Election Day and went and called people at county headquarters. Election was over by 8:00 pm (which means that they didn’t have to wait for marine blue Fairfax and midnight blue Arlington to report in to know what was going to happen).

Anyway, there was snow in the Laurel Highlands yesterday afternoon as I drove east from Pittsburgh. It hovered between 30 and 33F.

Yes, and that’s the thing. They know that all of the anti-Muslim bigotry is coming from one side of the aisle and had been turned up to deafening levels since The Pustule burst onto the GOP scene, but even in an article that’s – about – that very thing, they still can’t bear to make “Republicans are in full ‘Putting on the Reich’ mode” their lede. It’s this is in the bloody Guardian. It’s madness. They’re pathological.

Oh it’s worse than that. These aren’t ‘economically anxious’ voters they’re talking about, these are actual nominees and their campaigns. So who are they? I’m sure people here would – love – to know details about these mythical non-Republicans who’ve been inspired by The Pustule to go Full Metal Islamophobe, if only so they can send money to their Primary opponents. So who are they? Where? What have they said?

Nothing. Tumbleweed. It’s just put out there that ‘candidates’ are doing it and they’re mostly BUT NOT ALL Republican and left at that, all insinuation and zero evidence. It’s infuriating.

I was canvassing today for Elaine Luria in VA 2. Small sample size, but 90% of the women I talked to were strongly for Elaine, 90% of the guys I talked to were for Scott Taylor. Of some interest to me though were some women who would not talk to me with their husband present, and one guy who shut the door in my face when the name I had on my canvassing sheet was his wife and not him. She was home, but evidently not allowed to talk to me.
“I love him, but we don’t talk politics”, said one lady who looked over her shoulder to make sure her husband wasn’t listening.

I was catching up on BJ threads and saw this in a now dead thread from early this morning. I had this same experience canvassing on Saturday. I had quite a few addresses where only a single woman’s name was listed. There were at least a couple doors where instead of the woman, a man answered, said the woman was home but that no I could not talk to her. It was pretty strange. I think I also encountered some middle-aged parents of women in their 20’s who in one case would not call their daughter to the door and in the other basically said go away we are not passing your candidate’s information along to them. First time I had really experienced that this cycle & I have knocked on a lot of doors. I assumed it was because I was in a mostly red area where they were targeting younger & college educated women to the exclusion of everyone else. One of the strangest was a woman who asked me why her daughter’s name was on my canvass list because “we (assuming from context she meant the entire family) don’t vote.”

Good morning from Alexandria. Good thoughts for Leto and Avalune and their doggie(whose name is? and can we have a pic maybe?). Blech, blech, and a thousand more blech to bastardAetna and other entities.

That’s a fair question. But if the Revolutionary Front of Greater Vermont had been pandering that hard to WWC sensibilities on behalf of their forcefully adopted candidates, I’d have expected to have heard – something – about it here.

@Kay: My eternal pessimist of a father* is convinced the Dems are not talking about threats to SS and Medicare enough and will lose if they do not start doing so. I asked for his source on this and he said he saw it on TV (MSNBC). I told him they weren’t covering every single race and he replied if it was a national trend the media would cover it. I told him the media didn’t cover everything that was happening, only what they wanted to cover.

*I sent him a link to Postcard Patriots and told him to start writing some because I refuse to listen to his bitching if he’s not doing anything about it. If he won’t canvass or call, he can damn well write postcards.

I think it would be better if Gillum did not let MS-13 and the Black Panthers take over Tallahassee. Now he wants to turn the entire state into Venzuleelah? And Iran? And maybe New Jersey? And give away free drugs to six-year-olds!!!!

I sent him a link to Postcard Patriots and told him to start writing some because I refuse to listen to his bitching if he’s not doing anything about it. If he won’t canvass or call, he can damn well write postcards.

Also, too: a neighbor sent a Facebook link critical of a group of self-loathing women waving Trump signs at one of his hate rallies. Oddly enough, every single one of them was a white blonde. Or maybe they were paid $50 each.

Barbara is 84, and she knocked doors for our campaign this weekend. She was given 14 doors to knock yesterday, and she did 8 before her legs gave out. When she returned to the office, she said, “I want to finish what I started. Can I please come back tomorrow?” She was insistent. pic.twitter.com/NBpXyrMpP0— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) October 21, 2018

@Marcopolo: Hillary said after the election that some women were in a way bullied by their husbands and partners into not voting or voting for 45, and of course, the media thought she was wrong and purely making excuses for herself.

I know that men sometimes do this from people who worked on the census. The men didn’t want their wives to answer questions. My husband will sometimes answer the phone for me because he thinks I’m too nice, and that drives me crazy.

@satby: I saved some mums a few years ago–a friend suggested taking them out of the planter and putting them in the ground before the first freeze. 3 of 5 survived, and have bloomed every year since. The dragon’s wing get so big–I didn’t have room. My dining area looks like a greenhouse. I do have a basement, though–maybe next year….

Trump said “go cover the caravan- that’s my new campaign tactic!” and they all OBLIGE. They don’t give a shit about migrants other than when Trump tells them go chase them.

They’re STILL doing the thing where they put Trump’s lie in the headline. I mean, Jesus. It’s been 2 years. Fix it. Try something else.

They missed this whole election. They covered some other election, the imaginary one in Donald Trump’s head.

The Press is beginning to lose its credibility with the liberal part of the political spectrum. Given that the “conservative” part of the spectrum already considers them enemies of the Republic, they’re in danger of having their credibility disappear up their own rectums. I wonder if they’ll scream at liberals about civility when it’s their butts being tossed into cages and not the children of asylum seakers.

@gvg: It’s, guess what?, climate change! Ta da! At least partly. The west coast all the way to Alaska has been warm and dry. Cold air ftom the arctic has been pushed far north due to a warm NE Pacific Ocean/ El Nino. In the eastern US the arctic air has been pushed far to the south (an encursion of arctic cold). Its a combo El Nino and wildly perturbed Jet Stream. This pattern may continue for months or change depending upon the El Nino strengthening ir weakening.

The Arctic has warmed 5 degrees while the average got the planet so far has been 1 degree. This is altering weather dynamics in ways that climate scientists are still exploring (debating).

@Kay: The slap on the wrist that Kobach receives is infuriating. A black woman gets 8 years behind bars for voting before her probation was completed while Kobach gets a small fine for mass voter obstruction.